| Abstract: |
Introduction: Beads are excellent type fossils. Their small size, portability, scarcity, and attractiveness made them ubiquitous trade objects. Although in terms of bulk and value they played lesser roles than textiles, spices, or foodstuffs, their durability has favored their preservation. Beads of considerable age are still worn in some areas, they were common burial offerings, and those lost long ago can be recovered archaeologically. Properly studied, they have proven to be sensitive markers of many human activities, including aspects of past behavior that are otherwise obscure. Correctly evaluated, beads may significantly supplement the data obtained from the study of stone tools and ceramics. Glass is the premier bead material. Invented in the Middle East around 2500 B. C., glass making spread slowly. The first indigenously made glass of Asia is found in Chinese and Indian beads dating from the eleventh century B. c. (Yang 1985: 26
Francis 1984). The key to glass making is skilled labor. More of an art than a science, glass making is mastered through experience and by trial and error, and skills are usually passed down through a family. The basic raw materials for glass are abundant
the exotic mineral salts used to color, opacify, or decolorize it are not really necessary for its production. Glass is attractive, can assume an almost infinite variety of shapes and colors, and is durable under a wide range of conditions. Glassmakers are often few and far between, and their product has often been regarded as special, even semimagical (Schenk 1963: 257
Hammell 1983). The great variety of glass beads in Asia reflects movements of peoples, ideas, and goods, whose history is imperfectly understood and the subject of much debate. Although a study of beads cannot solve all these problems, it might reasonably be expected to furnish new data on socioeconomic relations and even to offer chronological clues. At a minimum, it should provide data on a sophisticated technology and the area's trade. Beads are important in the lives of many Asians and were often even more important to their ancestors or those who once occupied the same territory. The scientific inquiry into the origin and history of beads, however, has been limited. Borneo may be cited as a typical example. Early ethnographers mentioned the value placed on beads only in passing (Wood 1870:460-461
Roth 1896:39-76). Hose andMcDougall published some information on Borneo beads, but only with brief notes (1912: vol. 2, 226-228, pI. 130). By mid-century the beads of Sarawak and Brunei had a champion in Harrisson (1950). The Sarawak Museum has published a short monograph on beads (Dunsmore 1978), and work has been conducted by Munan-Oettli (1981, 1983, 1987). Few of these studies have been archaeological in nature, nearly all were ethnographic. The same is true for most other countries in Asia. Bead research has been conducted in villages, in museums, or even using private collections. Few analyses of these beads have been carried out, and almost no comparative work has been done with beads from other parts of the world. Bead research is a highly specialized and rather new field of inquiry, and the progress made elsewhere has not always been matched in Asia. This has resulted in misconceptions and misidentifications, so that one task we face is to examine some preconceived notions critically. Fox's warning that Philippine heirloom beads are not as ancient as many had thought (1977: 760) may stand as a caution about most other heirloom beads in the region.
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